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A couple Gripes on McD's Style

First off, I am not giving up on Greg M. I think that with his overall style he needs more veterans and depth. That will take time. Also he has caught no breaks with injuries. With that said I do have a couple of questions on philosophy.

1st I am not sure of our rationale on how we play pick-and-roll defense. The last two games I have been to, our bigs guarding the screener are standing way off and then the guards that are guarding the ball are trying to fight over the top. Their guards just turn the corner and collapse our defense. Our bigs will step uphill and then they dump it down for a dunk, or we help off the wings and they kick for an uncontested 3. If you watch any NBA games there are two main ways to guard the pick and roll. Either smash the screener and go under, or hedge hard and go over the top. Not sure why we cant do that at this level.

2nd I am fed up with us not attacking on offense. I know we dont have a lot of slashers but the guys that can drive it dont. Wes and Craig both settle for J's way to often. Along with that our bigs stand when shots go up. When are we going to demand that our bigs get on the offensive glass to give us some more chances to score. Rashon is about the only guy that consistently goes to the glass. Wes is by far the worst at standing around.

I hope these are some things that get addressed but I am a little concerned that they wont.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

Good points.

Something that bothers me is that when we are struggling on offense, he shortens our bench, rather than trying some other guys. I think we should have seen Boozer sooner than we did, and Haluska has been shooting well in the past few games, why not run a play to get him a look?

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

Our defense definately needs to improve. We have shown that we can be a solid defensive team at times but have only been able to maintain the focus and intinsity for a few whole games.

I think aTm showed us exactly how to run an offense last night. They penetrated and either scored or found the wide open man when we helped. This is something I wish we could do more of and I think we will as Garrett develops. Their posts also showed us how to establish position and a variety of post moves.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

What about using the pick on offense? To this has been a poor aspect of the offense.

In the last couple of games have I watched the defense doesn't need to fight through the pick. The ballhandler does not get close enough to whoever is setting up the pick to have the defense fight through the pick. It is like the center will stand at the top of the key and not be used.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this board but....Boozer in my opinion is not very good. I've seen him in practice and I can assure you that there is a reason the Hilton crowd has not seen much of him. Fans and Charles need to get over the six letters on the back of his jersey.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

If everyone on the court is sucking, try some new guys. Not doing this feels like we're just banging our heads against the wall.

These players are pretty young, so there are going to be nights when they just plain stink. Why leave them in forever? Try someone new.

Did it ever dawn on you that he sees these guys play each other every day in practice and maybe he is actually playing the best players on the team that give us the best chance for success.

I think you can argue on a coach's style/philosophy, recruiting prowess, etc. However, I find it hard to argue the "who is playing" argument because one thing I know for certain about all coaches is that they want to win (and keep their jobs). I can assure you the McDermott (and all coaches) are playing the players that they believe give them the best chance to win based upon what they see in practice every day.

I cheer for two teams, Iowa State and whoever is playing the hawkeyes.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

This combination of players should never have more than two of them on the court at the same time Peterson, Haluska, Thompson, and C. Johnson. I think that thompson has the most potential out of this group, that being time after time we will have Peterson, Haluska, and one of the two bigs with brackins and clark. We have no one that can create with this lineup and brackins is a freshman while clark truthfully is in his first year of playing half court offense and contributing. I am tired of his poor use of timeouts and untimely substitions. I miss eustachy and floyds coaching styles because i would be watching a game and i would think we need to get this player in and bam they would be getting off the bench, it never failed.

With all that being said i think that at times we play great and i am hoping that will be what happens in the next 2-3 years when the player turnover has stopped and the players that we do have are more experienced. We will be fine it is just i want to get to that point now.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

Originally Posted by kg-cyclone

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this board but....Boozer in my opinion is not very good. I've seen him in practice and I can assure you that there is a reason the Hilton crowd has not seen much of him. Fans and Charles need to get over the six letters on the back of his jersey.

I have never seen him play. This was another kid (like Eikmeier this year) that got way too much hype on this site last year...purely because of who his older brother was.

I cheer for two teams, Iowa State and whoever is playing the hawkeyes.

Re: A couple Gripes on McD's Style

Originally Posted by kg-cyclone

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this board but....Boozer in my opinion is not very good. I've seen him in practice and I can assure you that there is a reason the Hilton crowd has not seen much of him. Fans and Charles need to get over the six letters on the back of his jersey.

THANK YOU!! -although I think you are going to get ripped for saying that. Has anyone here seen him dribble the ball? It's painful to say the least. I can see him being effective in the future as someone who can catch and shoot but that's it. A few games ago he drove into the lane and had a very easy/clear shot at the rim but instead panicked and got rid of the ball.

It's not fair to judge him yet but the people begging for him to play really don't know much but his brother - imo.

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